'The 50 Paintings ' Project


Painting # 11

Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci

The Mona Lisa is perhaps the most famous painting in the world. Painted by Leonardo Da Vinci some 514 years back at Florence,Italy

The model Lisa Del Giocondo was the wife of a wealthy silk merchant of Florence.

Mona Lisa has had her share of publicity starting from when she was stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris.... to some vandals throwing acid and stones on it in 1956 .... to a woman throwing red paint over it in 1974 and another Russian woman slamming it with a tea cup she bought at Louvre because she was denied French citizenship!

Mona Lisa smiles ....and in such a way that its difficult to understand what she's thinking. 

Many hours have been spent by many art historians trying to decode just that :) 

I also did an interesting experiment which I will mention in the end....

So what else is there about The Mona Lisa?

Say , did you notice that in the scene behind her is a road and a bridge ...

There is a ledge behind her and it seems there is a Jar placed on it....

But those were not jars but part of  a pillar which was cropped up -  which explains that she was probably sitting in a balcony as in this drawing by Raphael 2 years later. 

Also The Prado National Art Museum in Spain found a copy of the Mona Lisa ..So what's special about that you say ..Because we all know that the Mona Lisa is probably the most copied and reproduced painting in the world !

The Prado did an analysis of the underdrawing and scientific testing and found that this copy was made by another artist sitting right next to Leonardo , copying what he painted stroke for stroke!

...And that experiment I was talking about...I  had tried this some years back ....

If you stare at her smile for a few seconds she seems to smile a little bit more . 

Its creepy but it worked again just now!